Daschle is Indefensible
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on February 4th, 2009 5:38 am by HL
Daschle is Indefensible
WASHINGTON — No need to fumble for words that sum up the stew of hypocrisy, arrogance and insiderism that is the unfolding saga of Tom Daschle. This is the audacity of audacity. Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader turned multimillionaire power broker, is defending his nomination to become secretary of health and human services despite having failed to pay all his taxes, despite having failed to tell President Barack Obama’s transition team about his six-figure nonpayment before his appointment was announced, and despite having raked in about a quarter of a million dollars in fees for giving his insider insight to health insurers and others that the department he wishes to run happens to regulate.
Obama Should Channel Harding, Not FDR
In the first half of last century two presidents inherited recessionary economies from their predecessors. Both campaigned on smaller government, and both blamed the profligate ways of the previous president for their economic problems. One ended the recession in less than three years; the other lengthened it by seven. One responded with laissez-faire capitalism; the other with unprecedented government expansion. Scholars rank one among the worst presidents ever; the other they rank as one of the best. These two men are Warren Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Warren Harding was elected president in 1920 at the end of World War I, directly following the popular Woodrow Wilson. Harding inherited an economy transitioning away from wartime production as well as decreasing international demand for many American goods that had driven economic growth during the war. American factories were retooling and soldiers were coming home looking for work. The nation’s output, by some measures, fell as much as 24 percent and unemployment more than doubled between 1920 and 1921. Between 1919 and 1921, farm income had dropped by 40 percent. The country was falling deep into recession.
